Gentle Resolve
by R2s Muse
Summary: Having just returned from Adamant Fortress, Inquisitor Cadash seeks some air to clear her head after an evening at the tavern. Varric tags along to make sure she doesn't accidentally tumble off the battlements. Slow burn fluff ensues. Varric x f!Cadash. Follows "The Trouble with Hawke," in the Fool's Errand universe, but this drabble is pretty stand alone.


_**Gentle Resolve**_

 _ **By R2s Muse**_

 _ **A/N: Set during DA:I within the Fool's Errand universe and just after the events of**_ _ **"The Trouble with Hawke." But this little story is pretty stand alone.**_

* * *

 _How long has this been here?_

Malika Cadash glared sternly at the low, wooden fence that had the audacity to appear suddenly in her path outside the tavern. She steadied herself against the unexpected barrier for a moment and blinked owlishly a few times, which helped, a little.

She pushed off the fence and focused on walking in a straight line toward the stone steps to the battlements that now seemed awfully far away.

"You sure that's a good idea?" she heard from behind her.

She whipped around toward that familiar voice, and the world unhelpfully spun once or twice.

"Varric," she said, blinking again.

"Your Wobbliness," he said, the moniker somehow sounding warm instead of mocking. He strolled closer. "Is the top of a very tall wall the place you want to be when you're having trouble staying upright?"

"At least I'll be able to see any further stumbling blocks before they see me."

"I think that may be the first time I've ever been called a stumbling block," he said, grinning.

She grimaced, unable to be truly annoyed at Varric. "So were you sent to find me, or are you just being enterprising?"

"Leliana and Cassandra were asking after you," he admitted, scrubbing at the stubble on his cheek.

She frowned at their intrusiveness, her face feeling unaccountably elastic and traitorous in how much it revealed. "I just need some air after how crowded and stuffy the tavern was."

"Yes, the memorial was well attended, wasn't it?"

"Too well," she muttered without thinking, her annoyance finally escaping.

He paused for a beat. "Many men and women lost their lives at Adamant. Warden Stroud, included." His soft tone was not exactly admonishing, but his eyes narrowed quizzically.

"And no one knows that better than me, Varric," she snapped, her words echoing too loudly in the stillness of the moonlit courtyard. "Stroud sacrificed himself so Hawke and I and the others could escape the Fade."

He raised up his outstretched hands. "Hey, I didn't mean anything."

"Good." She turned back to navigate the stairs.

He jogged across the remaining distance between them as she teetered onto the first step. "May I join you?" he said as he took hold of her arm like they were a couple out for a moonlight stroll, and not the Inquisitor and her . . . her . . . A better word escaped her.

When she slipped the first time, she muttered a curse at the uneven step. The second time, she was convinced it was the distraction of Varric's distinctive scent of leather, coin and ink. By the time they reached the top, she was just glad he had not let her go, which he did of course as soon as they stepped out onto the deserted stone walkway.

She leaned her hands on the parapet and took a series of deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. She had been right to come up here. It helped. The slight chill in the crisp air was already starting to clear her head.

A faint ring of light circled the full moon where it shone through a thin layer of clouds. The endless expanse of the sky would have terrified her ancestors. Malika found comfort in its grandeur and mysteries, appreciating that no one had all the answers. Idly, she wondered if Varric thought the same.

"Are you not pleased with how the memorial turned out then?" he asked.

She sighed. "I am."

"Then . . .?" he started, sounding puzzled.

How could she explain her restlessness at the memorial without Varric thinking ill of her? The tavern had been stifling. The crush of very tall humans. The repeated invocations of the Maker from Leliana. The verses of the Chant of Light sung by Cullen and, surprisingly, Hawke, in a duet that sounded like they sang together often. The generous flow of substandard ale and spirits, subsidized out of Malika's coffers, that made her light-headed.

"It was . . . fine," she said at last. "Very Andrastian."

"So sayeth the Herald of Andraste."

She let out an explosive sigh and spun around. "Please don't call me that." She typically ignored the title like all the other ill-fitting trappings of the Inquisition, but tonight it grated on her that even he was using it.

Her too-animated face scowled openly. She was becoming as thin-skinned as the rest of her team.

"As you wish. Malika." He gave her a searching look, trying again to figure her out. As if he could ever figure her out. "So what is bothering you? And don't try to deny that there's something. I know you well enough by now to recognize when something is wrong, even if you like to pretend that nothing ever fazes you."

She would not smile at his presumption that he knew her, but it did compel her to answer truthfully. "It was . . . It wasn't . . . something I'm accustomed to."

"In what way? Folks have been dying for the Inquisition – for the Carta – for quite some time."

She shook her head. "Death is part of life. It's merciless, but clean. Simple. Tonight was . . . was . . ."

"Tonight was messy. And emotional." He paused, eyes dancing. "Unpredictable, one might say," he added, reminding her of his flirtatious advice a few weeks previous that she needed more unpredictability in her life.

She scrubbed a hand down her forearm and started to truly regret the amount she had drunk as her emotions bubbled again too closely to the surface. "A-and religious. I know Leliana thinks this Herald of Andraste business helps us politically, but I don't like feeding these hollow lies to our own people."

"I think you're focusing on the wrong things."

"Oh really?"

Varric ignored the warning in her tone and pressed on. Brave soul. "It wasn't about death. Tonight was about life. That despite everything, life goes on. And life is messy and emotional."

He caught her eye but she had to look away.

"And I'll let you in on a secret," he continued. "When we pay honor to Stroud and his sacrifice, what some of us are really thinking is not about his death, but about the lives he saved." He stopped for so long that Malika had to look back at him in curiosity.

He opened his mouth, and then hesitated further on whatever he was going to say before continuing. "Like with . . . Cullen. You didn't see him, stuck here in the real world, waiting, wondering, fearing what had happened to Hawke after you all disappeared. He was a wreck."

"I'm sure you were all very concerned about Hawke." She pressed her lips together to avoid saying anything further on the subject. Despite finally having forged a fragile camaraderie with Marian Hawke during their travails in the Fade, Malika still had zero interest in listening to Varric fawn over her.

"Yes, we were," he said, right on cue. "Just as we were concerned about you. You do realize that this memorial is our big sigh of relief that you're alive?"

"There was no need to worry." She turned away toward the distant horizon, pleased that she sounded more like herself. "I brought the anchor back."

He chuckled. "You sure don't make this easy, do you?" He grabbed her right hand, turning her back toward him.

She was so surprised that she just watched as he uncurled her clenched fist. His fingers gently straightened each digit one by one, tracing a line from her sensitive palm to the tip of each finger. "Yes, you are our last and best hope to close the breach."

She swallowed. "You know, the anchor is in the other hand," she muttered, trying to sound lightly amused at his mistake and failing. He did not know her so well after all.

He continued to trace up and down each finger, crossing lightly over her palm in an electric tease of sensation.

"Oh, I am perfectly aware," he said without looking up. "I see how those green embers of magic shoot through your hand as they dissipate, setting fire to your veins and sinews, almost like the anchor is traveling through your very life's blood. I know how you clench your fist to try to hide your discomfort, probably even pain, every time you use it. That it seems to get worse, and yet you still move onto the next rift and use it again. And again."

His fingers never stopped moving, skimming across the callused skin of her palm like it was the smoothest silk. She held her breath and her heart seemed to beat in her throat.

"But this is the hand that I fight for." His eyes remained trained on the hand he held, her completely ordinary right hand, where he now traced the fine lines that marked her palm as unique. "This is the hand that took the Inquisitor's blade without fear. The hand that embraced the Inquisition's alien history and its promise for a better future. The hand that wields both power and justice with gentle resolve."

She quirked her mouth to one side. "And the hand that's going to punch you if you ever call me gentle again."

He smiled. "My point, rather exactly."

"You make me sound like a character in one of your books."

Finally, he looked up at her. The pad of his thumb now massaged the heel of her hand and all the right spots where she sometimes ached. "But, that's the thing. You're actually real." He frowned thoughtfully for a moment before breaking into a grin and releasing her hand. "Besides, you'd never stand for being so badly written."

She smiled back. "Self-deprecation doesn't become you, Varric."

"Nor you, Your Worshipfulness." He arched an eyebrow at her. "So if we want to appreciate your safe return, just let us."

Her cheeks warmed suddenly, from the ale, no doubt. "Maybe you're right." She made a show of looking around the battlement. "Maybe a tall wall wasn't the best place for a walk on a night like tonight."

"Or maybe that walk just shouldn't be alone this time."

Her thoughts chased in tipsy circles for a moment before she shoved thought aside and went with her gut. She held out her arm in invitation.

Instead of gripping her upper arm, as he had done on the stairs, his hand snaked out and took hers, pulling it securely into the crook of his elbow. She was deciding what she thought about this when his hand settled warmly atop hers where it lay on his arm. In unspoken unison, they began to stroll along the ramparts.

They spoke very little, which was unusual for Varric. For Malika, the silence just made it comfortable. Varric walked with a sort of smooth, rolling gait and she struggled at first to match him. Each time she tried to march forward in her usual headlong stride, he would draw her back with a gentle pressure on her hand and tighten his arm where it tangled around hers. It pulled her a little closer each time until his hip brushed hers with each step and she fell into his rhythm at last. Not slow, but measured. Not dawdling, but biding his time. The coiled spring in his step marshaled his energy in the here and now, and not in the destination, speaking of power restrained, of urgency untapped. Her skin hummed with it.

She was not sure how long they walked. Eventually they stopped near the steps that led up to her tower, and he released her with brief squeeze of her fingers. She should have mostly sobered up by that time, but her head still buzzed from his proximity, that distinctive scent, the intrusion of his hand on hers, all foreign and yet familiar at the same time. He gazed at her, his eyes dark and unreadable in the dim starlight

"Thank you, Varric," she said at last.

"For what?"

"For ensuring this walk wasn't my last."

He chuckled. "Just doing my part, since that was hardly the sort of unpredictability I was hoping to add to your life."

Her heart pounded so loudly against her chest that she wondered that Varric could not hear it. "Then what about this?" she heard herself say before grabbing the gilt-edged lapels of his tunic with two hands and fastening her lips to his.

She froze in place while her whole body flooded with heat, from desire or embarrassment or maybe both. He recovered from the surprise before she did, slipping his hands up to her face and holding her just so as he deepened the kiss for a moment before stepping back.

Her head spun at her apparently still-drunken audacity and she pressed a hand to her heated cheek. She searched his face, but it remained indecipherable even to her dark-adjusted eyes. She inwardly cringed, heart in her throat, as the awkward seconds beat out.

Finally, he glanced up at the sky and nodded slowly. "You're a fast learner."

He turned to walk away but then stopped. "Until next time then." He swept her a florid bow and broke into a sudden, mischievous grin. "O Queen of Spontaneity." He winked at her and continued on his way.

A more predatory smile curved her lips. "You can count on it," she murmured.

The End


End file.
